 The fall has finally arrived, and with it, the need to re-organize my closet. Every year at this time I carve out some time to put away the shorts, tank tops and dresses, and pull out the cozy sweaters, leggings and jeans. The crisp air outside motivates me not to delay.
Yet, I can’t say that I particularly enjoy this process. Yes, this is a great opportunity to re-evaluate my wardrobe and to get rid of things I no longer like. I know the 80/20 rule – that most of us wear just 20 percent of our wardrobe 80 percent of the time. In my case, it’s more like 10 percent of the wardrobe 99 percent of the time. But still, for one reason or another, I hesitate to minimize. It’s tedious. It’s time consuming. And most of all, there is that perennial question that hangs over my carefully curated closet…what if? What if I change my mind? What if I come to regret it? What if I grow to like this piece again? What if? What if? What if? It strikes me that in some ways this process of decision-making is similar to the way that many career changers approach their transition. You know that the career you’ve chosen to pursue is no longer working. Deep down you know it’s time to make a change. Yet this realization remains just an inkling while you rationalize to yourself why you shouldn’t. Last week, I attended a panel on career transitions, where a room full of want-to-be career changers listened to sage advice and insight of those who already found their career holy grail. The number one take-away? Don’t wait. Waiting, and then finally taking the plunge towards a new career, months, or sometimes years later, seemed to have been the common thread in all the stories shared that evening. Someone waited because they felt they invested too much time and money into their education. Someone waited because they wanted to finish the degree they already knew was not the right fit -- but they had only one year to go in school. Someone waited because they didn’t want to move – moving ended up leading them to a network of new connections and ultimately, discovering how to blend their interests into a profitable business. Finally, someone waited because they didn’t know what else to do. They had been following the safe path of getting a good degree, finding a good job, and making good money. All the panelists ultimately woke up and realized they’ve been waiting long enough. The time had come to make a change. In hindsight, they all were acutely aware of the passage of time – the time they spent waiting vs. the time they spent actively in transition – one period marked by uncertainly, hesitation, depression, and rationalization; the other period marked by empowering decisions that brought them closer to their dreams. The take-away was not to wait. Even if the only thing you knew with certainty was that you didn’t like what you currently did. At the end of the event, the moderator turned to the audience. Any last questions? There was one. What signs do I look for as I try to identify what I should do next? Look for things that bring you joy was the response of one of the panelists. What are the things you gravitate to over and over again? What are the favorites in your closet? Everything else can go or take its honorary place in the back.
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 When was the last time you gave thought to what you value most? Our values lie at the core of who we are – they define what we deem important in life and in work -- but they are very infrequently verbally expressed. Instead many of us choose to communicate what we value through our behavior and actions. We are content and at peace when our values and our actions align. On the contrary, when we experience tension, anxiety and unrest, it is a sign that our beliefs and our actions are out of balance. WHEN WE HONOR OUR VALUES, WE MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON CLEARLY DEFINED PRIORITIES. WE ARE PURPOSEFUL WITH OUR CHOICES AND WE FEEL A SENSE OF WHOLENESS AND FULFILLMENT. WHEN WE ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH OUR VALUES, WE HAVE NO INTERNAL COMPASS TO HELP US MAKE DECISIONS. WE TEND TO PRIORITIZE THE WRONG THINGS WHICH CAN LEAD TO UNHAPPINESS AND DISSATISFACTION. Often, we’ll have a vague recognition that something is wrong, but won’t take steps to delve deeper until a change in circumstance, such as starting a family, or a more negative event like a job loss or a family illness jolts us to action. Those events can serve as important wake-up calls, but should they be the only time we open ourselves to taking stock of what’s truly important? Today is as good as any other day. DEFINING OUR VALUES CAN HELP US MAKE IMPORTANT LIFE DECISIONS AND ANSWER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. - What type of job will I find fulfilling? - How can I prioritize my personal and professional goals? - Where should I live? - What kind of role model do I want to be to my kids? UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU VALUE MOST IS THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING A ROAD MAP TO LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE. ALTHOUGH OUR CORE VALUES ARE GENERALLY STABLE, SOMETIMES AS WE GROW OR OUR SITUATIONS CHANGE, WHAT WE ONCE DEEMED IMPORTANT SHIFTS. OFTEN, WE WITNESS THOSE SHIFTS IN THINKING AFTER BIG LIFE EVENTS. Keeping a check on our values is therefore a lifelong exercise. Taking some time to revisit what you value can help you stay on the right course, clarify your priorities and re-balance your life. EXERCISE. STEP 1. Think about the times in your life (starting childhood through present) where you’ve felt happiest and most fulfilled. What were you doing (personally, professionally)? Who were you with? What goals were you accomplishing? Write down any common themes. For example, you notice that you feel happiest and most fulfilled when you are entertaining others, spreading joy and laughter, putting on formal or informal performances, and being the life of the party. Or, you may be most fulfilled when you are helping others in need and providing a service that helps other people improve their circumstances. You like to provide help in times of crisis. STEP 2. Read through the list of values below. Go through the list once and cross out any values that clearly don’t match with what you deem important. For example, if you enjoy solitude, reading and quiet walks by yourself or a close friend, then socializing is probably not your most important value. Cross it off the list. Do this until you’ve narrowed down to 30-40 values. Next, look through the remaining values and group together any values that overlap. For example, Honesty, Integrity, and Lack of Pretense would go together.
STEP 3.
Keeping in mind your reflections from Step 1, compare the remaining values/buckets of values. Which of the remaining values do you consistently honor in your life? Which would you like to prioritize more? You are trying to identify your top 10. It may help to pick two at a time and think about them side by side. Your goal is to re-order them from least important (at the bottom) to most important (at the top). For example, if you are comparing Achievement and Adventure/Fun, you may think of a situation where you are given a last minute opportunity to travel to an exotic place you’ve always wanted to explore. Perhaps it's a friend's destination wedding. At the same time, you are on track for a promotion at work, but know that taking time off would set you back and/or possibly cost you the promotion. How would you resolve the conflict? Would you choose Adventure over Achievement or vice versa? Re-order the values accordingly. Prioritizing like this will take some time but it is a worthy exercise. WHEN YOU CAN CLEARLY DEFINE AND EXPRESS YOUR VALUES, YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF LIVING A MORE PURPOSEFUL AND CONTENT LIFE. YOU WILL FIND IT EASIER TO MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS AND WILL FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH THE CHOICES YOU MAKE. LIVING A LIFE IN ACCORDANCE WITH ONE’S VALUES MAY NOT ALWAYS BE EASY, BUT IT WILL ALWAYS GUIDE YOU IN THE DIRECTION THAT'S RIGHT FOR YOU.  A couple of weeks ago, for my daughter’s birthday, a family friend sent her a gift: a book called “The Most Magnificent Thing.” It’s a story of a girl with an idea.
It’s the most magnificent idea. Just what will it take to make it real? “She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work”, the story goes. “Easy-peasy. But making the most magnificent thing turns out to be harder than she thinks. She measures, hammers, fastens, and adjusts again and again, but the thing just keeps turning out wrong. If only the thing WOULD JUST WORK!” She tries and tries again. But it is still wrong. The girl gets mad. Mad enough to want to quit. “I am no good at this,” the girl says. What happens then? Does she persevere? Or give up? How does she respond when she encounters a challenge? In 2006, a psychologist and a professor at Stanford University, Carol Dweck, Ph.D., wrote a book called “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” In it, she introduces the idea of mindsets, or beliefs about yourself. As a scientist and researcher, Dweck discovered in the course of her career that people are predisposed to holding two separate mindsets, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset, and that the differences in how people think are already apparent in early childhood. These differences are particularly evident in how people respond to failure. People with the fixed mindset believe that their success or failure is a direct reflection of their innate abilities. In other words, if they succeed, it’s proof that they are smart and capable. On the other hand, if they encounter a particularly difficult challenge, it’s proof that they are lacking in ability. They are less likely to try again after a failed attempt, because they are afraid of being perceived in a negative way, by themselves and others. Those with the growth mindset, however, see the results of their efforts not as a reflection on their ability, but as evidence of how hard they worked to solve the problem. They approach problems with enthusiasm and see them as an opportunity to learn and get better. If they meet with a challenging problem, their confidence in themselves does not deteriorate – but their resolve to find the solution grows. According to Dweck, the two mindsets lie on a continuum – the way you think is not a black-and-white dichotomy. She argues that with effort and awareness you can put yourself into the growth mindset even if you start out with the fixed. And that’s what ultimately happens with our little heroine from “The Most Magnificent Thing.” She goes for a walk, and with the help of a friend, she is able to gain a new perspective. Her previous failed attempts are no longer ALL WRONG. “There are some parts of the WRONG things that are really quite RIGHT. The bolts on one, the shape of another, the wheel-to-seat ratio of the next. There are all sorts of parts that she likes!” She gets back to work. By evening time, the girl is finished. She’s made The Most Magnificent Thing. And best of all, she gets to enjoy it with her friend.  If you ever saw the movie “Three Kings”, you may remember this great scene with Archie Gates (George Clooney) and Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze), where they talk about courage. American soldiers stationed in the Gulf at the very end of war, they are about to attempt to rescue their friend from an enemy bunker. But Conrad expresses concern.
Archie Gates: You are scared, right? Conrad Vig: Maybe. Archie Gates: The way it works is, you do the thing you are scared sh!tless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it. Conrad Vig: That’s a dumb way to work. It should be the other way around. Archie Gates: I know. That’s the way it works. It would certainly be easier if it was the other way around. If all of us had this magical stockpile of courage, we could easily do what we were most scared of. Arguably, then, everyone would be living their best, most expansive life. Or at least, attempting to. But that is not how it works… We have to take conscious action to overcome danger and face our fears. But even before we decide what action to take, we have to make another fundamental choice. We have to decide whether we allow the experience of risk and fear into our daily lives. Most of us don’t have to put our lives on the line in battle. We don’t have to showcase courage by doing something heroic. We have the luxury to wake up each morning, feeling generally safe, and go about our days choosing to act in a way that doesn’t put us at risk. We can ignore our fears and avoid going outside our comfort zone. We don’t really need to be courageous. Facing your fears means feeling discomfort. It means possible failure. And not everyone wants to feel discomfort. Very few of us, if any, want to risk failure. I recently came across and watched again the now famous 2005 Stanford University commencement speech by Steve Jobs. The three stories from his life that he shares, about 1) connecting the dots after taking an unconventional path of dropping out of college, 2) having to start over after a very public failure (getting fired from Apple), and 3) his cancer diagnosis, all converge in one powerful underlying message: Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. That is a wonderful, inspiring message. But what if you don’t feel courageous? What if you are terrified of change? What if you don’t want to seem a fool? What if you are struggling to make this harder choice? “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love,” Jobs says. Jobs was by any measure fortunate – he found what he loved when he was young. But he was also not immune to self-doubt in the face of rejection and had to overcome many obstacles and failures before he ultimately regained his footing and built a company that is now an icon around the world. Perhaps Jobs found the winning formula for being and staying bold. Going towards challenges, embracing risk and confronting fear will never be as easy as staying in your comfort zone, at least on the surface. But it is a much easier choice to make when you do it in the service of what you love. |
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